How to Get Faster at Running: What Actually Works, in Order
Asier G. Morato
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7
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Cover image generated with AI — © Chubby Studio S.L.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Most runners get faster by running more, mostly easy, for months without interruption, then adding one or two harder sessions a week. World-class distance runners do at least 80% of their running at low intensity, and in a study of 85 elite runners, total distance run had large effects on performance.
If you want to get faster at running, the honest answer is less exciting than a secret workout: run more often, keep most of it easy, add one or two harder sessions a week once the base is there, and keep doing it for months without getting hurt. Speed is mostly built by the runs that feel too slow to matter.
That is not a motivational slogan. It is what the training of the fastest distance runners in the world looks like, and it is what the research on how they got there keeps finding. Below is why that order works, where hard sessions, strength and sleep fit, and how to tell from your own data that you are improving before a race tells you.
What actually makes a runner faster?
Three things decide how fast you can run for longer than a couple of minutes: the most oxygen your body can use (VO2 max), how large a share of that maximum you can hold before lactate starts piling up (your lactate threshold), and how much oxygen each kilometer costs you (running economy). Physiologists Michael Joyner and Edward Coyle laid out that model in 2008, and it still frames the field.
The middle one is where most recreational runners have room to grow. In untrained people, lactate starts to climb at about 60% of VO2 max; trained runners can usually work at 75 to 85% before it does. That gap is mostly training, not talent, because the threshold depends largely on how well your muscles use oxygen, and that capacity is highly trainable. It is also why a stalled VO2 max estimate does not mean you have stopped getting faster.
Do you need speedwork to get faster?
Not at first. For a newer runner, a steady increase in how much you run makes you faster on its own, because all three factors respond to volume. Harder sessions earn their place later, once you can run four or five times a week without feeling beaten up.
The evidence from the top of the sport points the same way. In a 2019 study of 85 elite and world-class male distance runners, Casado and colleagues tracked their first seven years of systematic training. Total distance had large effects on performance throughout, and easy running predicted performance alongside tempo runs and short intervals. The authors concluded that easy running was crucial, partly because it is what makes the total distance possible.
A 2022 review of world-class distance runners by Haugen, Sandbakk, Seiler and Tønnessen found the same shape in their weekly routines: at least 80% of their running is done at low intensity, all year round. The hard sessions matter, but they sit on top of a very large easy base. That is the logic behind zone 2 training, and the reason most runners who stall are running their easy days too hard rather than their hard days too easy.
How long does it take to get faster at running?
Longer than most plans imply, and unevenly. The same 2022 review notes that most world-class distance runners train systematically for 8 to 10 years before they reach a high international standard. You are not trying to get there, but the timescale is a useful corrective: running fitness keeps building for years, and the week-to-week change is small.
In practice, that means judging progress in blocks of six to eight weeks, not run by run. A single slow run after a bad night or on a hot afternoon tells you almost nothing. The same route at the same effort, a couple of months apart, tells you a lot.
See whether your easy runs are really easy
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In what order should you add things?
Here is the order that follows from the evidence, for someone who has been running regularly for at least a few months. Each step assumes the one before it is in place.
1. Consistency and weekly volume
Run on most of the days you planned to, week after week, and grow the total gradually. The fastest way to lose running fitness is an injury that stops you for six weeks, so the goal is volume you can repeat, not volume you can survive once. Training load is the useful lens here: it counts how hard each week was for you, not just how far you went.
2. Keep easy runs genuinely easy
Easy means you could hold a conversation. On a heart rate watch, that usually means the lower zones, set from your own data rather than an age formula, because an age formula is a population average and your own maximum can sit well above or below it. Setting your own heart rate zones is the fix for that.
3. One quality session a week, then two
Tempo runs work on your threshold, and short intervals work closer to your VO2 max. In the Casado study, tempo runs and short intervals were the hard sessions most linked to performance. Start with one a week. Add a second only when the first stops leaving you flat for the next two days.
4. Strength work for economy
A 2018 systematic review by Blagrove, Howatson and Hayes pooled 24 studies with 469 runners. Strength training generally improved running economy by 2 to 8%, and tended to improve time trials from 1.5 to 10 km and sprint speed, while VO2 max and blood lactate were typically unchanged. Most of the programs that worked used two to three sessions a week. We will not write you a routine here; a coach or physiotherapist is better placed to do that, but the case for adding it is solid.
5. Recovery that lets you absorb the work
Fitness arrives in the days after a session, if sleep and recovery allow it. When heavy legs last for a week instead of a day, and your resting heart rate creeps up alongside, it is worth knowing the difference between productive fatigue and overreaching before you add anything else.
Why am I not getting faster?
When a runner who trains regularly stops improving, it is usually one of a few things. Every run lands at the same medium-hard effort, too hard to recover from and too easy to push the threshold. Training keeps getting interrupted by niggles or illness, so the base never grows. Sleep is short for weeks at a time. Or the hard sessions have been the same for a year and no longer ask anything new of you.
Notice what is not on that list: a lack of willpower. Most plateaus are a structure problem, not an effort problem, and the fix is usually to run the easy days slower, not the hard days harder.
How can you tell you are getting faster before a race?
The clearest early sign is the same pace at a lower heart rate. Run a familiar flat route at an easy, steady effort and note your average pace and heart rate. If, eight weeks later and in similar weather, the same pace costs you several beats less, your aerobic fitness has moved, even if no race has proved it yet.
Two more signals help. Your VO2 max estimate trends upward over weeks, although a single reading jumps around for reasons that have nothing to do with fitness. And a repeatable test, such as a solo 5K effort on the same course every couple of months, gives you a number you can compare honestly.
This is the part FitWoody is built for today. It reads your Apple Watch data, scores each run by its cardiac load against your own heart, places it in your custom heart rate zones, and tracks your training load over weeks. Overnight, it compares your HRV and resting heart rate with your own baseline, so you can see whether you are absorbing the work. For outdoor runs, Flyover replays the route with your heart rate, so you can see exactly where an easy run stopped being easy.
Where to start this week
Look back at your last two weeks of runs and count how many were truly easy. If the honest answer is fewer than most, slow those runs down before you change anything else. If they already are easy and you have been consistent for a couple of months, add one tempo run a week and leave the rest alone.
Getting faster is rarely about one heroic session. It is the unglamorous weeks stacked on top of each other, and showing up for the easy runs counts as much as nailing the hard ones.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to get faster at running?
Newer runners usually notice easier runs within a few weeks of consistent training, but meaningful speed builds over months and keeps building for years. Judge progress in blocks of six to eight weeks, such as the same route at the same effort, rather than run by run.
Do I need speedwork to get faster as a beginner?
Not at first. For a newer runner, running more often and more consistently makes you faster on its own. Add one tempo run or interval session a week once you can run four or five times a week without feeling beaten up, and keep the other runs easy.
Why am I running more but not getting faster?
The usual reasons are that every run is done at the same medium-hard effort, training keeps being interrupted by niggles or illness, sleep is short for weeks at a time, or the hard sessions have not changed in a long while. Slowing the easy runs down is often the first fix.